Just finished shaping a 9’8" stepdeck for myself in my garage. I’ve shaped and glassed about 10 boards, but since I’ve moved back to the beach (read:DENSE housing), I’m a little weary of going the standard poly route due to the fumes…SO…Thinking of going with epxoy. A couple questions:
1.) Ok to use standard tints with epoxy resin (I’m doing a solid resin tint on the entire board)?
2.) Ok to use epoxy with Volan glass?
3.) Any downasides you can think of to ising epoxy on a purpose built heavy noserider?
Still trying to decide what to do…UV would be cool to try too…
yep…just be sure to use even pressure and it’ll come out great.
not recommended…never done it personally, but i’ve heard of multiple bad experiences
nope. mine is 9’6", clark classic foam, triple 6-oz deck, double 6-oz bottom, yellow tint. only tinted 1 layer top and bottom, then did the other layers clear on top. thick filler coat, light sand, then another coat of epoxy to polish up to a nice gloss. i like heavier noseriders, too…and i like epoxy. this was my solution.
I have used epoxy with tint on a Walker blank with 6 oz silene bottom and double 6 oz silene on the deck and it turned out nice. I tinted both the laminate and the filler coat. You could probably get by with just tinting the laminate.
As for the volan and epoxy, I used it on my last board and would have to think long and hard about doing it again. It was easy enough to work with, even with cutlaps. The problem I am running into is that I used a Clark super blue blank and the board dents very easy. Not sure if it’s a blank problem or an epoxy/volan problem. The board that I used the Walker blank and epoxy shows no dents and it’s been ridden pretty hard.
yeah…dig up that epoxy primer in the resources section…it’s solid gold.
although epoxy does not dry tacky the way poly does without surfacing agent, you still need to do a separate filler coat after the lam…otherwise you’re sanding the weave of the cloth.
To all the experienced epoxy users, I also have a question. (I’m about to do my first epoxy).
Since epoxy doesn’t have the tackiness of poly on the lam, do I need to rough up or otherwise prepare the laps when I do the lam? Thanks for your help. Doug
You can’t use UV cured poly when doing a a solid color job.
Rule of thumb is, once your tint gets past a certain tranparency amount, the UV light needed to fully penetrate through the resin to the board will be blocked simply becasue it can’t get past the solidness of the color in the lam. So if you need an opaque tint, then this would not be the best resin to use, at least without using MEKP in the batch.
On your neighbor issue…
Because it cures in minutes, UV resin will definitley reduce the amount of exposure to fumes for you and your neighbors. But this is only because it takes much less time to glass with UV than standard MEKP poly. So the smell will be just as bad, but not as bad for as long. Also, if you lay paper down or a dropcloth under the glassing stand you can get that in the sun immediately after glassing and cure it to remove the odor.
So ithe odor is the same. if your a good glaser workign smoothly, and quickly then you c an significantly reduce exposure to odor.
That said, unless you have very cool neighbors, or at least one that aren’t there durign the day (lunchtime glassing??) then you might be better of wih epoxy.
This is Jesus, and I glassed a clark blank with RR epoxy and pigment and it worked well. I would be careful of using Volan with epoxy because of the fact that Volan is stiffer and epoxy takes longer to cure so keeping the laps down might be difficult. I understand the board does not want to be “lightweight” so you could just add an additional layer of glass. My next longboard will be clark/walker blank and RR epoxy due to the fact that I have RR in my shed. I imagine the schedule will be 6x6 E or S deck and single 6 E on the bottom. My current board is the above mentioned schedule and it is not light by any standard. Epoxy is very friendly and you are welcome to come make a test batch at my house if you like.
Try Resin Research epoxy with Additive F. The F makes it really easy to sand. Add it to trhe lam and you can sand your lapspretty easy. Add it if you’re doing colors. I did a green tint swirl and green tint deck and they came out nice. I couldn’t tell much difference between using poly and epoxy except epoxy has no smell, goes off a little slower and is heaps stronger!
Since epoxy doesn't have the tackiness of poly on the lam, do I need to rough up or otherwise prepare the laps when I do the lam? Thanks for your help.
Doug, ideally you get coats on in less than 24hrs from the same side. This can be tricky with the longer cure times. If longer than 24 hours just scuff up a little and wipe with alcohol (not acetone). See primer on this. If you can get it down in under 24hrs you get better bonding (chemical and physical).
I’ve been doing cut laps on the deck (wrap from the bottom) with resin tint bottoms. I do bottom lam, cut deck lam, hot coat the deck before it even gets a full cure, flip and clean the laps, and hot coat the bottom. Still often can not get both sides done in 24hrs. But it does mean you can get bottom, deck and deck hot coat all in one day and hot coat the bottom in the next. So it works if life does not get in the way.
This is the only down side to epoxy, longer cure times == waiting, but it also means plenty of work time.
Warm your epoxy to about 80 deg F before mixing that will help with flow and set time. I’ve also been putting a space heater in the workshop and getting it to about 80deg. with RR fast hardner I can cut the lap in 2-3 hours this way. Another hour to flip time.
As for tints, think just like poly; infact for most of it think poly with more time and nearly no smell.
As I understand volan is more about look than function so seems like a waiste to use volan with tints anyhow, but sounds like not recommended with epoxy.
Go for it Scott, it is nice stuff to work with. The primer has most everything you need to know. Add F helps with flow out and sanding. If lamming 3 layers of glass you might want to increase you Add F.
Yup, Just finished reading the whole article…Great info there! Thanks again…I sent Greg an email in regards to getting my hands on everything I need. I like the longer working times and the “no acetone” features a LOT!
4est and Soulstice, Thanks for the specific information, and the location of the Epoxy Primer. Invaluable info for a first time epoxy user like myself. I started to do the color on my board last night, and should get to the epoxy lam by the weekend. Thanks again. Doug